Ughhh… so here we are, 2017 has arrived and we have no more excuses for guilt-free gluttony! Time to settle down into the everyday world and the obligation of taking care of ourselves.

Some of us may have done better than others at moderating the sugar and fat that passed through our celebrating lips, others may have consumed a bit more calories than needed. Calories will always be king – too much of any macronutrient calorie gets stored as fat if we don’t burn it. Calories-in must equal calories-out or less, respectively, if we want to maintain, or lose body fat. That is the crux of it and why exercise becomes a crucial ingredient of a healthy body lifestyle. Move it or get fat – Get 20 if you can!

Let’s address the dreaded “New Year’s Resolution”. I don’t have one. It is a life-long goal for me to monitor what I consume or I would weigh 5 or 6 tons by now, ha-ha, insert un-smiley face here. I was not blessed with a stellar metabolism – next time they pass those out I am at the front of that line and at the line front of the VO2 max endowments! My new year consists of a back-on-the-wagon approach, I am not in shock nor disappointed by an onset of abrupt changes, but start towing the line again, I must.

Time for a detox, some new exercises, new meditations and visualizations, and a renewing of commitment to reach and or maintain previous goals. This is exciting for me because I always enjoy the challenge of new beginnings!

This year I received some beautiful Christmas presents from my daughter, Vanessa. She gave me a 2017 Erin Condren day planner, some awesomely cute sticky notes, sparkly gold pens, and a Zen Garden!! I am all about organization so these are my kind of toys! I love writing down goals, it keeps me on track. The Zen Garden will be there to keep me focused if I need some positive distraction.

Erin Condren planner with awesome sticky notes!

My Zen Garden

Some of you may already know that I am a life-long, low-fat eater due to my family health history. I was diagnosed clinically hypothyroid and anemic at the age of 7 and have endured severe to moderate adrenal fatigue for over 25 years, these issues led to my heart-attack and subsequent quad bypass surgery in 2011 – the doc said my eating habits saved me from an earlier heart attack and death. No, I will not eat Paleo. No I do not do coconut oil. We each need our own diet, diets are not “one size fits all”. I respect all healthy eating styles and endorse what works for each individual.

My genetic testing shows that I cannot process fats in a positive manner, and guess what? At least 33% of you are in the same genetic boat with me! No worries, you and I have got this. My recipes help get through the holidays without much damage, help with life’s other celebrations, and a few cheat days here and there. I strive for a balance of quality nutrients and some “good fats”. It works for me, I am not on any heart or cholesterol lowering meds.

No food recipe for you in this post, however I am offering a recipe of sorts. Here is my “basic recipe” for a Happy New Year:

Eat lots of greens! Greens raise your level of vibration and that is a positive thing. Spinach, Kale, Swiss Chard, Asparagus, anything green and preferably raw, yes, raw. You will get the most benefit from the vitamins and minerals contained therein if the greens are consumed uncooked. Smoothies are best, salads work too. Add in some pineapple for reducing inflammation, and blueberries for antioxidant boosting. Next, squeeze in at least 20 minutes of yoga, resistance, or aerobic exercise each day. I suggest using the Fat Secret application or one similar, to monitor all of that. Fat Secret counts calories, macronutrients, and has a fitness tracker. It is another tool that I use daily to keep me in line.

These few ingredients above are only part of the “Recipe for 2017”, please add in a good dose of the following in generous amounts:

Adopt a positive attitude about life, living, and friendships. Start with honoring yourself. Small rituals can help create and maintain a positive mood which will be contagious to others around you. Start small. Take a spa bath or shower at home. Light a few candles, make some lemon water to sip, and soak in a warm tub infused with essential oils, baking soda, and Epsom Salt, for at least 20 minutes. Start eating healthier foods, or introduce more organic foods into your diet. Start a new exercise program or hobby. Read 10 minutes a day. Learn something new. Put the oxygen mask on yourself first, then step out to help others. There is little more satisfying than sharing good things when you are whole and available. Share with those in true need, support a homeless human or animal, try to make a difference in this world. Positive vibrations promote a positive environment for all – all of us need a little more of that. You can make your life, your body, your world, a beautiful place in which to dwell! Start with one ingredient at a time, adding more as needed to taste.

A fat-free recipe for medium garden grown zucchini,
or other vegetable of your heart’s desire!

Ahhh zucchini.

You can stuff them, steam them, sauté them, even eat them raw! They are a low-calorie vegetable that will take on the flavor, be it sweet or savory, of whatever you choose to mix with them.

Garden grown zucchini present a special challenge…size – it really does matter.

Young tender 6 to 7-inch zucchini squash are perfect for steaming or sauté, 8 to 10-inch are great for stuffing. If you allow them to grow larger, they become a problem: the skin is tough, the flavor is strong, and they tend to be a little bitter. Typically, zucchini larger than 10 inches go to what I call, “grated recipe” status; I use them in breads, fritters, cookies, salads. But, oh those seeds, what to do with them, they definitely must go!

This year’s garden provided an overabundance of larger zucchini nearing the end of the growing season due to my waning attention. With a glass of Moscato wine in one hand, and a 14-inch long zucchini in the other, I decided to do something daring…

I laid it on the counter. There it was, in front me, about 2 inches in diameter. What to do with it? I grabbed my knife and hesitantly sliced it in half. (Now, here is where it gets tricky: how big are the darn seeds?!) Hmmm, I inspected. This one had smallish seeds, and so I finished the slicing of it. I continued into ½ inch thick round slices. Not holding anything back, I spontaneously moved forward with a recipe I had been flirting with for quite some time!

You don’t really need a certain sized zucchini for this recipe, not a giant, smaller is better. Suffice it to say, my 14-incher turned out cravingly well even though it was a slightly larger sized zucchini than I would have normally chosen to use.

Here comes the fun part of this recipe: the tweaks! Those fun creative touches that will make this recipe your own. I am all about experimenting and trying new things! Looking forward to hearing what tweaks you did and the results. Try some of these and create a cravable new favorite!

Use any sized zucchini except a giant, and cut it into any shape you like, you may have to adjust cooking time for smaller or larger sized pieces.

Use any vegetable you like, simply adjust the cooking time for the density of the vegetable. For instance, potatoes and cauliflower may take a little longer cooking time to achieve the desired tenderness.

Serve as an appetizer, a side to your favorite main dish, or as a main dish if you are doing vegetarian.

Change up the ethnicity! Add different spices to the egg or the breading mix, your choice, let you imagination go wild! (I like to season both mixtures to give ‘two layers of flavor”.)

Serve with a sauce and garnish! Fat-Free Ginger Sesame Dressing (Lighthouse Sesame Ginger Dressing is one of my favorite!) or a few dashes of soy sauce for Asian; with fat-free pasta sauce for Italian, with traditional fat-free Ranch or Blue Cheese dressing for game day festivities, or make up your own low-fat or fat-free sauce! You can even top them with a few sprinkles of fat-free cheese for the last minute of baking in the oven. Pictured are Mae Ploy Sweet Chilli Sauce, a dollop of spicy mustard, and sprinkle of cilantro; also pictured with fat-free ranch or blue cheese dressing.

Marinate the zucchini before you bread them for another layer of flavor. A 20 minute soak in your favorite marinade would do the trick. How about soy sauce mixed with seasoned rice wine vinegar, lemon juice, or perhaps balsamic vinegar with a dash of garlic. Dill pickle juice for that “fried pickle” flavor!

Pre-heat oven to 350°. Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil, then spray with a light coating of fat-free cooking spray. Set aside.
Cut vegetables, set aside.
In a shallow bowl mix together egg substitute and onion powder, set aside.

Beaten egg and onion powder. Add other spices to the wash for an extra layer of flavor!

In another shallow bowl mix together the last four ingredients, set aside.

Corn flake breading mixture…yum!

Set up your breading prep area; from right to left or left to right whichever is most comfortable for you. Set up in a line with vegetables first, egg mixture second, corn flake crumb mixture, then baking pan. First dip vegetables into the egg mix using only your left or right hand, next into the corn flakes using the opposite hand, then place onto baking sheet. This method is the best way to keep your hands from getting “breaded”!

Set up for prep area, start from the side most comfortable for you.

Ready to bake!

Bake for 30 minutes or until desired color is reached, and vegetables are fork tender. Serve warm. Serves 6.

Fresh out of the oven!

Can be made ahead and reheated in the microwave.

(Yum, I just devoured some of the photo shoot left-overs from yesterday!)

We all have a mix, a cocktail if you will, that got us to where we are, our own personal brew that makes up our health profile. “Yeah, right, life is like a cocktail!” you’re saying to yourself. Just stay with me here. ..compare your life to a Tequila Sunrise, a mixed drink made of orange juice and tequila with just a touch of grenadine syrup to make that beautiful red-orange sunset in a glass. Imagine that is your current life situation contained in that glass. The orange juice is good for you, you could conservatively drink it every day and no real harm would come to you, given that you have no physiological adversities to it. Now, the tequila, well that’s an entirely different story – just a non-essential shot of alcohol to give the drink a kick. The Tequila Sunrise tastes wonderful while you drink it but you probably would not want to make a constant habit of consuming it because the tequila will eventually cause some type of problem. The good and bad mixed together may be palatable and even make you happy for a while, but it might take a toll on your health.

Your personal life cocktail is made up of many ingredients, some positive some negative. For instance; being sedentary is negative (tequila), daily exercise is positive (orange juice). Some ingredients may be temporarily or permanently out of your control and unchangeable, so we are forced to include them in our mix at present or for the rest of our time here on this planet. These unchangeable bitter ingredients might include an illness, stress related to our employment or lack of, our relationships, our financial state – these things can be fluid and may change quickly or over time. If you have too much tequila, try adding more orange juice!

I thought I was the hostess with the perfect cocktail, ha ha, silly me! It took awhile to figure out just what was in the bottom of my cocktail shaker! I came from a family where my brother was my abuser, not physically, just a narcissistic bully who never grew up. I was diagnosed with Hypothyroidism at age seven. My father, had hypothyroidism, cardiovascular disease, age onset diabetes, and died from his second massive stroke at age 64. I met and married a man just like my brother (just felt like home I guess!). I was married to him for 23 years and had two children with him. I ran a small corporation with my ex-husband and homeschooled my children. Eventually my mother developed Alzheimer’s disease and came to live with us. Stress was a major factor in my life! Over several years, three different medical doctors told me that if I did not change my current situation I would probably end up very ill. My mother passed and after that time I decided to listen to the doctors and left my husband – my kids and I moved 400 miles away. That’s my tequila.

Here’s my orange juice! My father had what the doctor called, “familial high cholesteremia”. No matter how little fat he ate his lipid levels would remain high. He was a chef, owned a restaurant, and had a difficult time staying away from fats. I started to create low and fat-free recipes for him…I was ten years old at that time. His condition made a huge impact on my personal choices. I stopped drinking milk. I stopped eating butter, margarine, and mayonnaise. I ate smaller portions of red meat. By the time I was 19 years old I was on a very low-fat eating regime. I joined a gym. I snow skied, water skied, hiked, played tennis, lifted weights, and took aerobics classes. I took up meditation and yoga. My weight always fluctuated due to my out of control hypothyroidism and pregnancies, but I remained active and didn’t eat much fat.

I was 52 when I finally left my husband. At age 54 I had a major heart attack and subsequent bypass surgery…more tequila to my mix. What a shock that was. Before the heart attack I could do 30 minutes straight, full-out on a ski machine without stopping, lift weights, and play tennis. I did yoga and meditation, and wore a size 3! My cocktail was palatable but it took its toll. Stress and my adrenals had given out. I didn’t realize how bad the stress was until after I left the marriage and moved far away from the situation. Reality set in, I had way too much tequila in my daily Tequila Sunrise for far too many years.

There are ingredients in your life cocktail of which you are in control, don’t wait, take control as soon as you are aware of them. My cardiologist told me that I probably put off my heart attack by a good ten to fifteen years because of my eating habits and exercise. Too bad I couldn’t have avoided it completely and taken care of myself. I just didn’t get out of my bad situation soon enough and my thyroid and adrenal system was about to fail due to the stress. Out of control thyroid disease causes heart problems.

Exercise, eating correctly for your genotype (genetic testing to choose the proper diet for the way your body metabolizes lipids), and maintaining well-being are important ingredients that should be generously mixed into your life cocktail, don’t skimp on any of those. Make time for yourself and always make sure you have a good balance to the mix. Get a complete cardiac blood panel with genetic marker testing from a reputable lab that does a full cardiovascular analysis. Here is a link to the lab I use, Health Diagnostic Laboratories, which is also recommended by the above referenced book: http://www.hdlabinc.com

One more thing that helped me to get on track after my heart attack, I found a brilliant thyroid doctor. My thyroid went completely bonkers after the bypass surgery and I needed individualized thyroid treatment to regulate my endocrine system. I do not take heart medications or cholesterol lowering drugs, just thyroid meds, minimal hormone replacement, and lots of good vitamins, but that is a whole other blog post!

Mix your life cocktail with as many good ingredients as possible, heal and stay healthy. Shaken or stirred, I wish you a long, happy, and delicious life!

Epicuriously yours,

Melinda

Please come visit me at any of my web haunts for more ideas, inspirations, and fantastic fat-free recipes!